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WhatsApp Voice Calling Feature Being Rolled Out

WhatsApp has silently started rolling out the much awaited free voice calling feature. The roll out is extremely slow and you actually need someone with the feature to call you to get access to this new feature.

WhatsApp has silently started rolling out the much awaited free voice calling feature. The roll out is extremely slow and you actually need someone with the feature to call you to get access to this new feature.

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Just like we had reported late last year, WhatsApp has started rolling out its much awaited free voice calling feature to its users. The news first broke out on Reddit, and it seems WhatsApp is deliberately slow in rolling out the feature. According to BGR India, WhatsApp has confirmed that they are beta testing the feature and will start rolling it out to everyone soon.

As per the Reddit user who first reported the WhatsApp voice calling feature roll out, he grabbed the latest version of WhatsApp for Android from the company’s official website. If you already have the latest version (v2.11.508 and above) and still don’t see the Voice calling feature, you are not alone. Apparently, the only people who have the feature are those who were called by someone who already has the feature. So that’s the trick to get the WhatsApp voice calling feature ahead of others – get hold of someone who already has the feature enabled, and make him call you using WhatsApp – no mean task that is.

It’s like an invite thing, where a person with the call feature needs to “call” another person who wants to start using the feature

Looking at the screenshots, the calling feature adds individual calls, chats, and contacts tabs at the top. It’s very interesting to note that the Calls get a priority over Chats. The Call interface just shows the name and WhatsApp display picture of the user you are calling.

WhatsApp isn’t the first Instant Messenger to implement the voice calling feature. Others like Telegram, Viber, WeChat and Line have had this free voice calling feature for a while now. But WhatsApp is special being the biggest instant messaging app with over 700 million users, and more importantly being owned by Facebook.

WhatsApp has been extremely cautious when it comes to rolling out of its new features. Even the half baked WhatsApp Web feature was rolled out in phases over a week or so, and that is after it was officially announced. Considering the Voice calling feature is still in beta and not officially announced, it might take weeks (if not months) for it to roll out to all users. Let us know if you manage to get access to this new voice calling feature on WhatsApp through the comments section below.

Raju is the founder-editor of Technology Personalized. A proud geek and an Internet freak, who is also a social networking enthusiast. You can follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. Mail Raju PP. Follow rajupp